Dezeen shares an obituary of the pioneering industrial designer and department store executive Charles “Chuck” Harrison (*1931 - †2018) who recently passed away.
Pictured here with one of his most iconic contributions, the 1958 update to the View-Master that popularised he children’s toy immensely, Harrison rose in the ranks of Sears, Roebuck and Company and eventually managed the department store and catalogue business’s entire design group, creating consumer products that ranged from the first plastic trash can—significantly for the garbage disposal and collection insofar as it became a somewhat quieter affair, home electronics, lawn mowers, cordless razors and the company’s line of Craftsman power tools—over seven hundred innovative items all told. Learn more about Harrison’s education and career at the link above.
Tuesday, 11 December 2018
stereoscopic
cop24
Whilst the international community is struggling to make meaningful progress that might avert the destruction and consummation of civilisation as we know it by committing to being less garbage tenets of this planet, the United States has not just backed out of global compacts that nudge in the right direction but has now assumed the mantle of profligate troll by counter-messaging the United Nations sponsored conference in Katowice (coat of arms pictured, the region known historically for its industry and coal reserves) with a pavilion extolling fossil fuels.
The US, despite the fact that antiquated oil barons can curry favour with the Trump administration and embarrassingly promote dirty fuel as a means to curb climate change, is certainly not alone in not upholding their end of the bargain and affecting real and saving change will require dramatic transitions away from not only traditional means of powering society but the ways in which society consumes resources itself. Activists chanting “keep in the ground” disrupted the start of the event with the remaining audience looking noticeably thinner after the protest.
autopilot
Plain Magazine directs our attention to the magical portfolio of artist Geoffroy de Crecy through a diverting and highly satisfying animated series called Empty Places—showcasing machines dutifully cycling through the motions absent human presence or interaction. The series was a deliberate aesthetic departure from his commercial commissions and experiments with the way gallery-goers might engage with the static-dynamic, set on repeat. More to discover at the links above.
morlocks and eloi
Via Slashdot, the Guardian reports on a massive and thriving subterranean ecosystem that rivals life above ground and in the oceans. Though unclear whether life first welled up to the surface or burrowed down, the cycles which the buried biomes follow are not the ephemeral or seasonal shifts that we observe on land but truly on geological scales with some microorganisms with life spans reaching into centuries, if not beyond. Findings and samples from nearly a decade’s long study from the Deep Carbon Observatory—a consortium of over twelve hundred biologists, chemists and geologists—are to be presented to the American Geophysical Union’s annual conference in the upcoming weeks.
